TALES OF DESTINY II ARTICLES

September 20, 2001 - According to the usually reliable organs of the Japanese rumor mill, Namco is preparing a special PlayStation fan disc for enthusiasts of the Tales RPG series. Entitled "Tales of Fandom Volume 1," it will apparently be a digital comic-style adventure mixed with lots of fan-interest odds and ends -- voice clips, making-of information, art galleries, mini-games, and the like. The game will reportedly become available this winter.

September 19, 2001 - Yes, Tales of Destiny II is quite a worthy piece of work, especially in this godless era of the Death of Sprites. Namco may be best known for its big-ticket next-generation polygon-cranking monstrosities, but the Tales series is one of its most popular franchises in Japan, and for good reason -- it's carried by strong 2D graphics, engaging character designs, and a great action-oriented battle system that has no close equivalent in any other game (save perhaps Valkyrie Profile, and that's still not particularly accurate).

July 13, 2001 - The Tales series began with Tales of Phantasia, 48 megabits of graphics, music, and voices for the SFC, and continued with Tales of Destiny for the PlayStation, which received acclaim in Japan and a small, but respectful response in the United States. Tales becomes a trilogy now with Tales of Eternia, which carries the 2D graphics, Mutsumi Inomata character designs, and Linear Motion Battle system into the waning days of the current generation.

June 8, 2001 - Beating the odds, or at least the ones we set while surveying the import version, Namco's RPG Tales of Eternia has been confirmed for release in the United States later this year, under the new title Tales of Destiny 2. Our fondness for the game in its original form gave rise to a few questions concerning the game's localization, and so we decided to ask them of Aki Kozu, the localization producer working on the game at publisher Namco Hometek. Read on, then, and learn a little more about translation niceties and Linear Motion Battle.

May 17, 2001 - We already have a rather large and comprehensive preview of Tales of Eternia on our site, so we shan't go into details about the game. As previously reported, the game is being released as Tales of Destiny 2 here in the United States and should give RPG-loving PlayStation gamers something to look forward to this year along with Final Fantasy Chronicles and Arc the Lad Collection.

November 27, 2000 - Courtesy our correspondents in Japan, we have a chance to share the latest set of release dates for Japanese games in the coming months. If you'd like to plan your next round of import purchases in advance, or if you'd just like to keep track of what's hitting the market at the end of the year, here's a complete list of games for November, December, early next year, and the strange nether world known as "to be announced," with media and pricing information.